Free a bathroom from the binary. Many agencies and businesses have single use bathrooms. Why not convert all of these to all-gender bathrooms (if you haven’t already)?
One recent study of trans people found that 70% have experienced verbal harassment, assault, or were denied access when attempting to use public restrooms. More than half – 59% — reported experiencing some sort of physical/medical problem as a result of avoiding public restrooms, such as dehydration, kidney infections, and urinary tract infections.
During COVID-19 especially, it is important to be careful about using public restrooms to avoid the spread of disease. This makes single-stall bathrooms even safer! You can advocate for all-gender single-stall bathrooms; safety should be accessible to everyone. Making existing facilities gender-inclusive – particularly if they already serve only one person or family at a time – is the best solution, but not the only one! Many people have made and posted simple signs in bathrooms encouraging respectful inclusion.
Not up for this mild form of public action? Take a much more private one: offer to accompany someone to the bathroom to provide moral support.
Are you a sexual assault or domestic violence agency? FORGE has a fact sheet: “Creating Trans-Inclusive Bathrooms in Shelters” available at http://forge-forward.org/wp-content/docs/shelter-tipsheet-5.pdf
[Want to read even more? Here is a list of links compiled a year ago with 26 resources. Many more have been written since, but these are great places to start.]
P.S. Are you keeping count? #GivingTuesday is 23 days away.
#30DaysOfAction #30DaysOfTransAction #TDOR #TDOR2020 #Bathrooms #Binaries #BeyondBlueAndPink #AllGenderBathrooms #Restrooms #GenderNeutralBathrooms #Trans #NonBinary